A New Paradigm for Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare information once garnered by the healthcare professional is now available to the public via the WWW. Dentistry must take a global perspective of this phenomenon if it is to capitalize on the use of new "electronic tools" to improve patient relations and oral healthcare. Dental professionals are going to continue to encounter more enlightened consumers as a result of public access to health-related information. Consequently, they will have to redefine how they relate to more informed patients in this new information paradigm. The dental healthcare professional will have to be proactive in acquisitions of skills and awareness of information that is available through both conventional and new digital resources such as the WWW.^1,2,5 This is essential to avoid becoming "technologically-disadvantaged" as the health information paradigm continues to shift toward the public domain.